Don't strike a blow to North Idaho

If Silver Valley miners and Hecla don’t come up with a labor agreement after mediation and possibly further negotiations, everybody in North Idaho will lose.

Yes, the stakes are that high.

The obvious losses would include the economic and cultural blow to and from some 250 union employees striking. If Silver Valley history holds any clues to the future. the strike would be passionate, not passive. Tension, strife and anger would feebly fill the gaps where healthy paychecks kept Silver Valley commerce flowing. The Silver Valley would not be a Happy Valley.

Hecla, an international company headquartered in Coeur d’Alene, is determined to get stronger despite a difficult regulatory climate, fickle commodities prices and untold challenges adapting to a consumer-driven economy. It, too, would lose. Its $225 million investment in the Lucky Friday No. 4 Shaft to lengthen the life and profit of the mine, for all stakeholders, would face an immediate setback. A labor problem here would detract from the company’s attention to important details elsewhere at a critical time when opportunities are being fully vetted so Hecla can increase long-term profits and create more high-paying, sustainable jobs.

In our view, Hecla management, led by CEO Phil Baker, prizes its workforce. In his travels around the world, at corporate meetings and during sessions with media, Baker never misses an opportunity to praise the company’s employees, particularly those who have rolled up their sleeves and invested decades of their lives deep underground. Baker acknowledges that as the world rapidly changes, so, too, will the workforce need to adapt and develop skills where they’re most needed. But whatever the differences in this labor dispute, corporate respect for workers is far from lacking, and with many of the potentially striking employees already earning six-figure wages, it’s likely that their appreciation is at least somewhat reciprocal.

Hecla and its employees wouldn’t be the only ones affected by a strike. Our region’s heritage would be bruised, its economic balance upset. And to what end? Labor strife on the mining front could trigger a more rapid transition away from the glorious, gutsy past of one of the region’s two legacy natural resource industries, timber being the other. Technology and automation, perceived as enemies rather than assets by some miners, by necessity could be ushered in before their time because of the void created by miners stepping away from their jobs. Yet some of it is needed sooner than later anyway. Improving safety — long the chief concern of mining employer and employee alike — will require machines assisting or doing the most dangerous work.

Change is inevitable for miners, as virtually every other industry in the world can attest. The best companies are dedicated to helping their loyal employees make the necessary adjustments, and we consider Hecla one of those companies. One of the assets that makes it so good is its workforce — the guys underground and the folks in the home office and elsewhere.

Hecla is celebrating its 125th birthday this year, making it North Idaho’s longest continuously operating business. The best birthday present would be workers and management finding a middle ground, creating a bright outlook not just for themselves but for all of North Idaho.